The Hong Kong cops and robbers genre provides an inexhaustible source of inspiration for imaginative directors like Dante Lam, whose police actioner That Demon Within adds enough horror for a respectable Stephen King novel. He stamps his very personal mark of psychological complexity on the protag, shrilly portrayed by American-born HK star Daniel Wu (The Last Supper) in an eerie but highly effective performance. And the Emperor production does not leave out any of the genre must-haves: shoot-outs in the middle of the street, car crashes, a bit of acrobatics and a beautiful policewoman boss worried about the daredevil hero. With all bases covered, including a bow in Berlin as a Panorama Special, the road is open for diversified audiences to enjoy the fun. The movie is being released in the U.S. and Canada on April 18, day and date with Hong Kong.

A seductive title sequence leads us into the den of the Demon King. Behind the old-fashioned rice paper devil masks are a criminal gang led by Hon (Lam regular Nick Cheung from The Beast Stalker and Stool Pigeon), a cold-hearted villain whose own men hate him. Their latest heist has yielded $80 million in diamonds, which change hands so often in the course of the story, it will take a sharp viewer to keep track of who has them at any given moment.

Watching the film, one has the feeling that the streets of Hong Kong are littered with dead pedestrians who had the bad luck to be passing by when the police opened fire on the bad guys. Lam opens on one of these high adrenaline scenes that leave cars riddled with bullets and dead drivers. (And it’s not the last; a similar scene on an overpass later on in the film is even more spectacular.)

In the heat of the shoot-out, Hon tries to escape on a motorbike, but crashes. Seriously injured, he stumbles into a police station for help, so smeared with blood he’s unrecognizable. There, young cop Dave Wong (Wu) dutifully volunteers to donate blood to save Hon’s life. Obviously a mistake, at least in the eyes of Inspector Mok (Ka Wah Lam), who wants him dead. Hon escapes from the hospital without much ado and from that moment the chase is on.

Now for the psychological interest: Dave is a problem cop, a stubborn loner with anger management and paranoia issues and, we gradually discover, much more on his mind. It’s not reassuring that Wu plays him like a nerdy Norman Bates, walking stiffly and bottling up his feelings. His new boss at work is Liz, a smart, pixie-like beauty (Christie Chen) who tries to stay professional but clearly has a soft spot for the guy. Concerned about his nightmares, violent impulses and some episodes of self-flagellation, she introduces him to her psychologist sister, who teases out his considerable childhood traumas under hypnosis.

Working on his own, Dave stays a step ahead of Inspector Mok as he closes in on the Demon King gang. Lam brings horror elements increasingly into play, particularly a recurrent image of people burning to death as human torches and a truly creepy scene in a funeral parlor. The final apocalypse is unapologetically over the top, but as great to watch as the last burst of fireworks.

Though the cops and robbers are so low-tech they seem retro (there’s nary an electronic device in the story), Lam’s filmmaking team deliver thrills on schedule with solid effects, crisp shooting and fast cutting.

Dante Lam conjures up an inferno in That Demon Within (Mo Jing) a dark twisted trip through one Hong Kong cop’s explosive meltdown. Possessed by the afterlife, Lam’s story plays out in funeral parlours and graveyards where the director’s action and special effects coordinators go about setting the city on fire.

Although it opts for a tricksy narrative with fussy flash-backs and hallucinations delivered in the widest-possible variety of styles, That Demon Within is bleak at its core, a dark, hopeless tale of death, corruption and mental illness shadowed by spectres. Dante Lam is a towering box office presence in Southeast Asia and with Daniel Wu in the lead opposite regular player Nick Cheung the Hong Kong director will test his audience’s appetite for an introspective thriller that blends kinetic action with Taoist superstition when it opens on April 18.

Despite a slightly opaque and somewhat overblown narrative, That Demon Within is a professionally executed production, laden with impressive special effects shots and bone-crunching violence. Some set pieces are particularly innovative, and Lam’s visual manifestations of mental illness are striking. Like Infernal Affairs, two male characters on opposing sides of the good/evil tightwalk lead the charge: Wu as troubled policeman Dave Wong and Nick Cheung as his nemesis, Hon Kong, leader of “the gang from Hell”.

When Hon is injured in a chase during which he murders two policemen, he winds up at the hospital policed by Wong. Not realising who Hon is, the cop donates blood to save his life, an event which begins to tear apart Wong’s carefully constructed world and shatter his all-important beliefs in right and wrong.

It turns out the upright Wong is a copper with a particularly fiery past, and as the dreams, hallucinations and flashbacks mount up, so does the body count - gangsters, family members, policemen, scores of civilians; at times it looks as if nobody in Hong Kong is going to get out of this fast-and-furious film alive.

Much of That Demon Within takes place in the dark including several key action sequences and meetings in the Kowloon Funeral Parlour with “the Gang From Hell”, Hon’s group of robber-killers who use the mask of The Demon King as disguise. Such an extensive use of graveyards, funeral paraphernalia and effigies is unusual for a Hong Kong action film, and may test the superstitious in home markets.

The tortured Wong, meanwhile, is helped by his superintendent and her psychiatrist sister while his efforts to look after his “granny” are prompted by a level of guilt that threatens to crack his fragile psyche, and the film, apart. That Demon Within boasts an inexhaustible visual energy; Dante Lam never lets up and the effects within a single hypnosis montage with its floating scenarios and twisting perspectives, for example, are beyond the scope of many of his Western counterparts across an entire film.

August 12, 2013

The Bottom Line
Hong Kong’s master of fatalist thrillers takes a break from his trademark doom and gloom to offer a warm and engaging drama drenched with redemption, hope and cracking mixed martial arts scenes.

Action-thriller expert Dante Lam returns with a story about a retired pugilist returning to the ring for the sake of his battered protege, a single-parented girl and himself.

Having established his standing as an influential auteur in Hong Kong in recent years with a string of furiously fatalist thrillers, Dante Lam has now returned to the fold with what could have been an oddity in his oeuvre: an uplifting, humane drama which offers redemption, hope and — perhaps most surprisingly — generous dollops of uncontrived humor.

Not that it’s a bad thing: Striking a neat balance with its (literally) bone-crunching fight scenes and laid-back depictions of the fighters’ emotional ebbs and flows outside the ring, Unbeatable — which won two awards at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June before unspooling as the opening film of the Hong Kong International Film Festival’s summer program on Aug. 13, prior to its general release two days later – is an engaging, poised piece with something for both actioner aficionados and those seeking competent storytelling and engaging personae dramatis.

But Unbeatable does begin as if Lam and his long-running screenwriting partner Jack Ng (plus child-star-turned-writer/producer Fung Chi-fung) are again in for lives caught in meltdown. In a prologue, the three major threads unfold as catastrophes, as each segment concludes with colors fading into monochrome: in Beijing, the young Lin Siqi (Taiwanese heartthrob Eddie Peng) returns home from his backpackers’ trip in Yunnan to discover his tycoon father’s (Jack Kao) business going bust; in Macao, the mentally ill mainland-born divorcee Gwen Wong (Mei Ting) loses her son when he drowns in the bath as she dozes off after yet another binge; and in Hong Kong, the homeless and reckless cabbie Ching “Scumbag” Fai (Nick Cheung) has his taxi and all his belongings set on fire by pipe-wielding loan sharks.

And as the narrative proper commences, the three stories converge. Living in hiding in Macao to escape from his debtors, Fai moves into a room in Gwen’s apartment, befriending her feisty schoolgirl daughter Dani (Malaysia’s Crystal Lee) in the process; taking up a job as a janitor in a boxing club, he witnesses Siqi trying to train for a mixed martial arts competition so as to secure the prize-money to alleviate his father’s financial woes. Taking the young man under his wing, Fai confronts his past as a disgraced champion fighter and, when Siqi receives a shattering, near-fatal defeat, returns to the ring one more time to retain his protégé’s honor and also his own.

It’s true that this basic premise runs along the expected lines of the much-trodden action-drama about marginalized pugilists getting one last redemptive crack at fame, but Unbeatable at least delivers a nuanced protagonist who hardly comes across as a contrived poseur (an example of that being Daniel Lee’s 2000 film A Fighter’s Blues, which couldn’t help shaping A-lister Andy Lau as a fallen Hercules regaining his ego and his virility with his comeback). While much has been written about Cheung’s real-life physical transformation to fit the role, the actor’s effectiveness here lies in his portrayal of a smalltime individual still carrying the scars of his dark past (he is revealed as having been stripped of his success and self-confidence when he was jailed for throwing matches and mixing with the mob while at the cusp of major-league stardom).

His new muscular build is largely out of sight in the film: it’s his natural turn as the scarred Fai, and his earthy performance – most remarkably opposite the equally eye-catching Lee (who won an acting prize alongside Cheung in Shanghai) and also a former fellow fighter (Philip Keung) – keeps Unbeatable’s heart beating. Fai’s mental flashbacks about his spiraling relationship with his deceased mentor adds to one of the recurrent philosophical leitmotifs which ties this film up with Lam’s past work too: it’s all about sons (and the occasional daughter) struggling to recompense for their elders’ mistakes or misconceptions. A young girl pays for her lawyer mother’s confused approach towards her job in The Beast Stalker; The Stool Pigeon’s titular character brushes with his death when his protector fails to protect him; separated-at-birth siblings end up as enemies in The Viral Factor – in Unbeatable, Siqi and Dani are forced to stretch their capabilities in order to attend to their inept parents, to harrowing and humorous effects.

Indeed, it’s this mix of tears and laughter amidst the blood, sweat and broken necks that makes Unbeatable an enjoyable vehicle, and proof that Lam is much more versatile than his past bombastic, doom-stricken spectacles might alone suggest. And with Lam returning to his favorite dark milieus with his next film, the bent-cop thriller The Demon Within, viewers probably might want to take in this light break before Dante lives up to his name and drags everyone off to the inferno once again.

June 18, 2013

Although “Unbeatable” contains a few pugilist-pic cliches, the storytelling artistry of Hong Kong helmer Dante Lam and Nick Cheung’s powerhouse performance make a raw and compelling experience out of this action-drama set in the world of mixed martial arts. While Lam never loses his grip on the action, he also beautifully modulates his characters’ turbulent ups and downs like musical movements, expressing the protagonist’s motto that fighting is all about setting your own rhythm. Critical opinion is likely to generate very positive word of mouth, but any potential to become a B.O. champ will depend on novelty interest in MMA.

What puts Lam a cut above most Hong Kong genre helmers is that he lets the drama drive the action rather than play second fiddle to it. Inherent in all his films is the idea that life is a battle, and in “Unbeatable,” whose Chinese title mean “Raging War,” the fighting is scarcely confined to the ring. Although Lam pulls no punches, so to speak, in presenting the physical brutality of MMA, his characters’ traumas and personal relationships prove no less engrossing.

Lam’s best films, like “Beast Stalker” and “The Stool Pigeon,” often pit male protagonists from opposite sides of the law against each other, then allow them to develop mutual empathy. In “Unbeatable,” that relationship is reworked into a redemptive mentor-pupil bond in which the protagonists learn from each other while dealing with guilt and penance.

The prologue grimly tracks three people hitting rock bottom. After a carefree holiday in Yunnan province, 30-year-old Lin Siqi (Eddie Peng) returns to Beijing to find his tycoon father (Jack Kao) has gone bankrupt overnight. In Hong Kong, washed-up former boxing champion Chin Fai (Cheung), or “Scumbag Fai” as he’s known locally, is up to his ears in debt. Gwen (Mei Ting), a single mother living in Macau, struggles with mental disorder triggered by a family tragedy.

Fai flees to Macau to take on a menial job at the boxing school run by old friend Tai-sui (Philip Keung) and sublets a room in Gwen’s rundown tenement home. Siqi, who’s also come to Macau, barely scrapes by with back-breaking construction work. To prove himself to his dad, who’s gone into a slump, he decides to enter the world-famous MMA championship, the Golden Rumble, and enrolls in Tai-sui’s school, where he eventually persuades Fai to be his personal coach.

With offbeat humor and warmth, Lam deftly brings these wounded souls into each other’s orbits, with transformative results. Gwen’s daughter Dani (Crystal Lee, splendid) warily opens up to Fai, and their developing bond helps to pull Gwen out of the doldrums. Turning Gwen’s hypersensitivity to noise into a metaphor for her social estrangement, the script builds a devastating chain of events using headphones as a motif, adding resonance to the film’s use of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence.”

As Fai cultivates a surrogate family at home, his initially mercenary reasons for coaching Siqi give way to recognition of the rookie’s tenacity and talent. Eventually the film reveals Fai’s backstory, how he threw away his career through youthful folly; in their shared anger, regret and need to prove themselves, these two men strongly recall the leads in Ryoo Seung-wan’s “Crying Fist.” But Lam tempers the genre’s scowling machismo with a lighthearted touch, as when the two men cheekily lock lips while wrestling each other to the ground.

In contrast with the playful, feel-good tone of the training scenes, the matches are thoroughly vicious, underscoring Siqi’s endurance and desperation. Consciously differentiating itself from traditional Western-style boxing or Chinese chopsocky fare, action director Ling Chi-wah incorporates hot MMA moves, like the “lock technique,” rarely seen in Hong Kong films. The exceptional attention to fighting strategies also enhances the film’s feel of technical authenticity; Kenny Tse Chung-to’s camera prowls nimbly around the boxers to catch their swift movements, while his tight closeup shots magnify their pain with punishing intensity. A final-act twist delivers the payoff of not one but two action climaxes.

Lam downplays any attraction between Fai and Gwen, depicting instead a day-to-day companionship that brings out Fai’s protective instincts. In a real sense, the true romance is between Fai and Dani, the film’s toughest fighter, whose optimism reminds adults what makes life worth living; watching the bossy, impish moppet run rings around the uncouth yet good-natured coach is pure delight. Malaysian child actor Lee also played Cheung’s daughter in Lam’s previous film, “The Viral Factor,” and they display an even greater rapport here.

Peng, who showed off his impressive physique in the gymnastics-themed film “Jump! Ah Shin,” is most captivating when he lets his body do the emoting; he has an easy chemistry with Kao and Cheung, but these character relationships don’t deepen sufficiently as the film progresses. Ultimately, it’s Cheung who owns the film, bringing considerable complexity to his portrayal of a flawed, troubled, passionate fighter who still retains the capacity to inspire and be inspired by others. Flaunting a ripped torso from intensive training, Cheung calibrates his fighting style to gain in strength and dignity as Fai gradually gets his act together.

Shooting is mostly confined to the ring, the school and the flat, all of which have a suffocating grunginess, interspersed with romantic, stylishly saturated images of Macau and some atmospheric scenes set on the rooftop. Other craft contributions are controlled and polished.

Wei, one of Taiwan’s most commercially and critically successful directors, received the news in the middle of the Asian night. He was unsure why Warriors had made the shortlist while the rest of East Asia is staying home. Asian films played no part in any major category last year.

“The Great Magician” debuted with $11.55 million over four days and managed to wrestle the first place from the highest-grossing hit of the year 2011″The Flowers of War”. “Magician”is the latest film directed by Derek Yee, who is good at balancing commercial success with artistic integrity very successfully.

Over the past year, three small-budget movies, Eternal Moment, The Piano in a Factory and Love is Not Blind, flexed their competitive muscle by attracting audiences and critical praise.

According to Chen Shan, professor at the Beijing Film Academy, the allure of small-budget films in the era of big-budget blockbusters is their ingenuity.

“Because their original cost is much lower, they can be more flexible with their themes. They dare to try something different from the mainstream, while blockbusters have to be more cautious,” he said to the Global Times.

Singapore director Jack Neo is evidently sticking to his winning formula - fresh-faced teen actors, heart-breaking family drama and a healthy dose of social commentary in his latest directorial offering, We Not Naughty.

Donnie Yen, Vincent Zhao, Jing Tian, Zhang Hanyu, Yang Kun attended the Beijing launch of a new Clarence Fok film (Chinese title, Special Status). Donnie Yen will action direct as well as produce. Peter Pau is the cinematographer for the film.

The cast of heavily-under-wraps Tony Ching Siu-Tong’s Madame White Snake (current English title, It’s Love) was revealed to the public at the production wrap press conference on the 16th. The cast presented to the press: Jet Li, Charlene Choi, Vivian Hsu, Huang Shengyi, Raymond Lam and Wen Zhang. The lineup also includes Lam Suet, Chapman To, Sonija Kwok, Law Kar-Ying, and Miriam Yeung. The film is now in post-production with a year-end release planned.

Industry abuzz about possible Cannes lineup
Asian filmmakers will be well represented. Bong Joon Ho, the auteur behind Korean monster pic “The Host,” will unveil “Mother,” about a woman who searches for a murderer who framed her son. Genre specialist Johnnie To will probably bring his latest, the Hong Kong revenge pic “Vengeance,” though the movie is in French. And Chinese helmer Lu Chuan may debut his “City of Life and Death,” his Nanking massacre pic, which has been generating strong international buzz.

Ekin Cheng apologizes for harassment.
A phone number shown in his movie Claustrophia belongs to a teacher at Bejing Foregin Studies University. Since the movie was shown on the mainland, the lecturer has received phone calls every two minutes asking if it is a movie star or connected to the film company.